[lbo-talk] How Americans would respond (Was Reply to MG)

[jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net]

> Marvin Gandall wrote:
> 
> >That is unsettling - and it's a point you and others have made before, which
> >I kind of thought was half tongue in cheek, because I truly can't see that
> >happening up here and regard the more liberal and urbanized Northern and
> >upper coastal states as largely sharing the same political culture as us.
> >That view was reinforced for me after the last election when those
> >Jesusland/United States of Canada maps started circulating on the Net. Is
> >the perception of two parallel political universes - red states, blue states
> >(more accurately, IMO, red hinterlands, blue cities) - greatly exaggerated
> >or is there substance to it? Wouldn't you expect to see a polarization:
> >Republican ranks moving right and Democrat ranks moving left if things
> >actually did start falling apart, reflecting the current equally divided
> >political alignment in the country?
> 
> You never know what could happen. Since the country is about equally 
> divided between Dem & Rep (ignoring, for the moment, those who've 
> excused themselves), if they moved to the extremes, the average might 
> stay the same but volatility increase markedly. It's easy to imagine 
> parts of the American right - the people that Lew Rockwell talked 
> about in his red state fascism essay - going wildly racist and 
> nationalist. But a lot of the pop isn't like that and could resist. 
> But how many, and how much? The mood in this country after 9/11 was 
> hideous, which isn't a happy portent for what could happen in a 
> crisis.
> 
> Doug

In general for a country so divided as ours it would seem easier to move right 
than left. The right would not fear to stand up to any move towards the left but 
the converse is not AS true. Similar to the McCarthy era. Fear is a powerful 
motivator and a tool used by the right much more effectively than the left. The 
fears the right play up are easily understood and stimulate a primitive 
response mechanism. The fears the left play on are more complicated and do 
not as easily provoke such a response.

John Thornton